TERRY RILEY

BANANA HUMBERTO 2000.
Concerto for Piano and Electro-Acoustic Band

Terry Riley, Piano
Tracy Silverman, Violin
Paul Dresher Ensemble Electro-Acoustic Band

I. WASHED ASHORE

II. THE MAZE

III. GOODBYE GOODTIMES BLUES FOR MILLENNIUMS CHILD

IV. DANZERO

BANANA HUMBERTO 2000 was commissioned by Musical Traditions, Inc., the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and Emory University as part of the national series of works from Meet The Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music/USA which is made possible by generous suppoort from the National Edowment for the Arts, The Helen F. Whitaker Fund, The Catherine Filene Shouse Foundation, and the Dayton Hudson Foundation. The project is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Program Note

What can be said by the author once the music is written? Well he really should say it all comes from God, modestly not taking any credit himself, but then God doesn't want to write program notes and if it is not successful he probably does not want to get the bad reviews....

The composer can play music critic and review it giving himself a glowing report card and beat the real music critic to the punch......

or give a play by play blow of how ideas occurred to him or didn't occur to him and he had to write the piece anyway cause there was a deadline and there was a hard piano part to learn and he had to stop writing at some point and start practicing....

or one can write lengthy poetic word descriptions that far outshine the new work or worse yet, embarrass the real poets in the audience.....

He can analyze what he thinks he understands of its music construction and risk putting the audience to sleep before the first note is sounded.....

He can write several pages indicating this piece is more important than pieces with shorter program note....

or write a very brief haiku description leaving everyone wondering if there is some deep hidden mystery they must discover.....

or he can simply say this is a 65 year old composer’s first attempt to write a piano concerto. Thanks for listening and please enjoy!